It described itself as a “voter guide,” and offered information on Montana’s Supreme Court race. The flyer compared the four men in the race to Barak Obama and Mitt Romney.

It was emblazoned with the official Montana state seal, which McCulloch says is, “inappropriate, deceitful and illegal.”

"I also thought the flyer was trying to influence votes, instead of being a research project," she said.

State Political Practices Commissioner Jonathan Motl says much about the mailer is still unclear, including the motivation behind it. He says he’s heard two possible explanations. The first is:

"It is an inappropriate exercise by two very young assistant professors at Stanford and Dartmouth, and they just didn’t know what they were doing. I don’t know if I buy that one."

The other possible explanation, Motl says, would come once it’s clear who exactly paid for the mailer. That’s still unknown at this time.

"Perhaps there is a direction to this academic adventure which is explained by the source funding. We don’t know that right now, and we’re not going to know that, until we finish the investigation."

The state’s investigation won’t be wrapped up until after the election. Motl says fines and other sanctions remain a possibility, but he doesn’t expect the investigation to be completed until early next year.

Dartmouth and Stanford are conducting their own investigations. Motl says the follow-up mailer they agreed to send will cost about $52,000, and that the schools will pick up the tab for that. Secretary of State McCulloch says she believes this is the first time in Montana history that a campaign mailer has been retracted.

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Lawyers representing Stanford University spoke with Montana’s commissioner of political practices today about a controversial campaign mailer.

That flyer, sent to about 100,000 Montanans last week, used the state seal without permission, and purports to show the political leanings of those running for two seats on the state supreme court. Supreme court races in Montana are by law non-partisan.

Have you received an official-looking mailer that rates the political leanings of Montana's four nonpartisan Supreme Court candidates?

If so, take a close look at it; the flier features an image of Montana's state seal and compares the candidates' political ideologies to those of President Obama and former Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Problem is, it's a fake. The state of Montana has nothing to do with these mailers.